Nausea
by kitten robot
Summary: "You have the curious habit of taking everything I have and turning it to ashes." A fight leads to an unlikely and uneasy relationship across enemy lines. Dramione. TW: abuse, violence.
1. Sting

The autumn chill was just as present inside the classroom as out, which Hermione was very thankful for, because it froze her nausea and tears before they made a bigger fool out of her. The tiny birds chirped and flitted constantly, another welcome distraction.

The room spun as the gin turned in her stomach; like everything else it was out of control.

When the door behind her creaked open, she thought it might have been a concerned friend, but instead the blank, hateful face of Draco Malfoy stared back at her. ' _No, why would it have been a friend?'_ Hermione thought. She had no friends who would support her over Ron; how many times would she have to learn that lesson the hard way? Instead she got to deal with a blood supremacist who had possibly grown so bold as to start murdering his fellow students.

She half-fell off the desk she was sitting on in her hurry, and pointed her wand towards his neck.

"Get out," Hermione said, her voice a lot quieter and wavering than she intended. Malfoy did not turn to leave, and a sneer started to crawl across his face, and she realised she was going to have to fight her way out.

Hermione moved as fast as she could to throw a garrotte hex at him, but he had his wand out too fast and partially blocked it, and the rope wrapped around his ankle instead of his neck. There was an instant where she could see the fury in his face before her body was thrown backwards and pain exploded down her arms.

She rolled onto her side and aimed a stinging hex into his eyes, and Malfoy apparently had a similar idea as he hit her with what felt like a magical acid attack on the side of her face. He recoiled as her hex blistered across his eyes, and she hobbled as quickly as she could towards the door, unable to run with the air knocked out of her lungs. The magical sparrows circled her adversary, hiding her footsteps as she stumbled out of the classroom.

She locked the door behind her and got away as fast as she could towards the nearest corner, but he did not chase after her. After she put a couple of floors distance between them, she slid down into a dark corridor corner and tried to get her breathing and heart rate under control. Hermione touched the side of her face gingerly and winced. A muted _lumos_ revealed his hex had broken nearly every capillary it hit.

The sting ran red down her face and in the coming days bruises blossomed down her arms, and Hermione refused to heal it, to make Harry and Ron stew in their guilt.

* * *

This is my first Dramione fic so I'm definitely interested in your thoughts, especially on whether I'm successfully keeping people in-character! I've mapped out the main plot points and will hopefully have a new chapter out shortly. Thank you for reading.


	2. Chemical

It was only a week later that Hermione had the misfortune of running into Malfoy again. She walked into the potions section of the library (with a determination not to let Harry best her again in Slughorn's class; she was getting very tired of constantly losing to him) and he was there. Eyes still red from her stinging hex, reading intently from an ugly ancient book that she instantly recognised.

Malfoy was less likely to attack her in a location with staff and a variety of heinous protection spells to protect Madam Pince's precious collection. It would be a good chance to grind his ego into the dirt and remind him to _fuck off_ and leave her alone.

" _Moste Potente Potions_ , hm?" she said, and his eyes slid from the book to her. "You know I've issued that book before, you might want to ask if there's a pureblood-only version you can touch with your bare hands."

Malfoy stared at her, unimpressed. "It would be more surprising if there was a book in this library you hadn't issued," he said.

Her mouth twitched. "True," Hermione conceded, and she kept her peripheral vision on him while acting as carefree as she could, looking along the the shelf for the book she wanted for the assignment. "I see that stinging hex did a number on you," she continued, right hand covertly finding her wand in her pocket in case she needed to defend herself. "Good to know I'm not rusty." She was too scared now, and just grabbed the nearest book like it was the one she was looking for to turn to face him again, feeling slightly more comfortable with Malfoy in her direct line of sight.

His face remained sullen. "I suppose learning to fight with your wand rather than your fists is an achievement for you," Malfoy replied evenly, and her heart thudded with anger at his veiled bigotry.

"Fighting my _own_ battles is an achievement, yes," she shot back. She slammed the book on the table and sat down opposite him. "Are congratulations in order for Crabbe and such not backing you up the other day?"

"You tell me," Malfoy said, looking pointedly at the burn on her face. "Looks like it hurt."

"Well, I could have healed it," Hermione rushed to say, not wanting to give him any sort of magical inadequacy he could turn against her, "but I thought it might have been important evidence if anyone else showed up cursed."

His jaw locked into place. _'Looks like Harry might have been right about Katie,'_ she thought. In the uncomfortable silence, the burning question she had been stewing over about his acid curse was on her tongue before she had thought it through.

"Can I ask you something?" she said abruptly, leaning in to stare him closer in the eye. "Why an acid curse and not a stinging hex? Are you planning on using muggle tactics to discriminate now?"

Confusion rolled over his face, crinkling up his forehead, and caused Hermione to suddenly consider that Malfoy better hope he keep his hairline, because his widow's peak could otherwise become very unforgiving. "What are you talking about?" Malfoy asked.

Hermione blinked, and the impulse to explain something that someone didn't understand kicked in automatically. "Acid attacks are used by muggles. They're mostly used against women as a kind of revenge."

"Nice," he replied sarcastically, which Hermione thought was quite hypocritical considering he was the reason she had brought this up. "Actually, Granger, I was trying to get you to stop attacking me."

Hermione leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. "Maybe you should have left when I asked you to," she replied coolly, "rather than block the exit."

"You're right," he hissed at her, suddenly giving way to the latent anger he always had for her kind, bubbling beneath the old-money surface. "I should have known you'd lash out without warning. Mother always told me that muggles are barbaric. You wouldn't know civility if it hit you in the face."

"Oh, is that what this was?" Hermione asked, pointing to her burned face. "You're right; I'm so sorry Malfoy for not properly thanking you for – "

She stopped speaking as he pulled out his wand and placed his armed fist on the table, aiming at her face.

"Going to try again?" Hermione asked, holding her own wand tightly underneath the desk.

"You always strike first," he responded. Hermione shook her head.

"No, that would be you. I'm not campaigning to eliminate your existence."

He had no response, and the silence between them was awkward and sad because her statement was true. She sighed, standing up and grabbing her useless book.

"I'm going to back out slowly, with my wand drawn, and neither of us will attack each other," she said. Malfoy didn't say anything, and they stared at each other as Hermione backed out of the section, her wand aimed at his eyes that were more red than grey.


	3. Ceasefire

Harry was forgiven as he prioritised Hermione over Ron in the days leading up to the Christmas break, and she was grateful to have her best friend back as Ron took to bullying her again. Seeing his extremely public relationship with Lavender and putting up with his unkindness was putting her off her food, but at least Harry and Ginny thought Ron was being a right asshole.

Coursework decreased in quantity as the holidays approached, which gave Hermione plenty of time to doll herself up and charm McLaggen into attending Slughorn's Christmas do with her. Ron wasn't attending, of course, but it was very satisfying to let him know and lead his gossipy girlfriend to discuss all of McLaggen's wonderful qualities in front of him.

However, by the time the party actually arrived Hermione was thoroughly paying her karma for her act of vengeance. McLaggen was extremely forward and obnoxious, and Harry scolded her like he was a disappointed parent when she ran into him. Hermione decided she would have a better chance of avoiding her date if she hid outside – preferably near the alcohol crates.

It was much cooler and quieter in the corridor by the kitchen entrance, and infinitely more relaxing with two glasses of champagne instead of an invasive date for company. Hermione cast a reflection spell and sharply inhaled with displeasure as she examined her destroyed updo. In an attempt to be romantic, possibly, McLaggen had run his hands through her hair, ruining hours of straightening and careful pinning into a fancy, snobbish bun. Sighing, Hermione let her hair out and re-tied it into a simpler ponytail. "What an asshole," she muttered to herself, and jumped when someone responded.

"Did Slughorn kick you into the mudblood section of the party?" Malfoy's voice asked from the end of the corridor, and Hermione groaned and grabbed her wand, turning her head to look at him. He walked over to her and looked at the bottle crates. "At least it's well-catered."

His hands were in his pockets, and he seemed to be in a more agreeable mood than when she walked into his study session. In the spirit of the holiday and the spirit of not wanting to deal with any more obnoxious guys, Hermione extended a ceasefire. "Can we _not_ do this right now?" She waved at the crates. "Here, a peace offering. I'll even share my segregated alcohol with you."

He stared at her for a second and then strode over to the stack of crates. "I guess Slughorn-tier wine is sufficient," he declared, and grabbed a bottle, aiming the cork at the wall.

"How do you make any friends with that insufferable attitude," Hermione wondered aloud, heart thudding in her chest as she tried to evaluate the dangerousness of the situation. Malfoy slid down the wall to sit beside her, chugging in a very Gryffindor manner from his war spoils. "No glass? What would Narcissa say."

"Don't think there's a protocol for drinking with the swine," Malfoy remarked as he paused and caught his breath.

"I forgot, your sense of manners is actually incredibly rude," Hermione replied, watching with disdain as he continued to down his champagne as fast as possible. He set his bottle down and looked at her, eyes still strangely red. Hermione suddenly wondered if he was ill – Malfoy looked like all the life had been sucked out of him, sweat shining on his gaunt face.

"Well, I was at least polite enough not to ask why you left the party to drown your sorrows. Only ugly girls do that," he informed her, and she rolled her eyes so hard she accidentally hit her head against the stone wall.

"Ow. For your information, I'm out here hiding from someone who never learnt to keep his hands to himself, so not _that_ ugly, thank you," Hermione replied, the effect of her retort somewhat ruined by her slurring and the knocking of her head.

Malfoy frowned. "That's hypocritical considering your propensity to start fights, isn't it?"

"At least I don't start fights by trying to sexually assault someone," Hermione said, swirling the last of her drink around in her glass. To her surprise, he poured the last of his bottle into her glass, and got up to get another. "Oh, thank you," she said, taken off guard.

"Does he only have wine?" Malfoy asked, searching around for something stronger.

"I'm not sure. What's your regular poison?" Hermione asked, and he returned with another open bottle with which he refilled her second glass.

"Whiskey."

"Mm. I'm a gin girl myself," she replied. "But, you know…in Gryffindor you get used to drinking anything."

"I think that's standard for all the houses," Malfoy said. "Why didn't you hex him?"

"What?"

"Your unwanted suitor."

"Oh. Well, uh…it's complicated," Hermione finished lamely, and Malfoy snorted at her weak excuse. "I actually did once, though," she remembered, and she jumped as Malfoy threw his head back and laughed; obviously the wine had gone straight to his head.

"Did you try and strangle him too?" he asked.

"No. Confundus charm."

"Is that how you convinced him to go out with you?" Malfoy asked drily.

"No. I think it's more like this date is punishment for my bad deed," Hermione said, ignoring his insult.

"So you ran away from it," Malfoy said, staring into his second bottle of champagne.

"Not very brave, I know," she replied, sipping from her glass and keeping an eye on how much Malfoy had drunk from his second bottle. A silence fell between them which gave Hermione the time to reflect on how deeply unsettling this conversation was. She had never spoken to Malfoy this long, or this civilly, before. A thought suddenly occurred to her as to why he might be so amicable, and the concern tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop it.

"Has someone hexed you or something?" Hermione asked. "You don't look very well."

Malfoy responded by conjuring up a bucket and beginning to throw up.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Well, you did drink two bottles of wine in five minutes," she said, and gingerly patted him on the back.

But Hermione returned to her initial evaluation after he finally finishing vomiting and started to violently shake.

"Malfoy? Hey – did someone hex you?" Hermione shifted to crouch in front of him, trying to pry his arms out of the way of his head and chest so she could see his face.

Immediately there was a loud bang, and Hermione found herself thrown several metres away, knocked onto her back and unable to breathe. It took a couple of seconds in her alcohol haze to feel the pain, and then to realise what had happened. Infuriated, she rolled onto her side and aimed her wand at Malfoy, but he aimed a curse at her before she could cast anything. A white line of fire struck the top of her head and snaked down her back – in her drunkenness and shock she could only notice the smell of burning hair, rather than any pain.

Still winded, she aimed a stunning spell at him and heard the thud as his immobilised body fell over. Staggering to her feet, Hermione walked over to him, ready to treat him to a broken nose the way he had hurt Harry earlier in the year. Her anger evaporated, however, when she looked into his frozen eyes and realised he had been overcome by a panic attack.

"Oh – hang on," Hermione said, grabbing his wand before starting a familiar ritual. _'Airway, relax, release,'_ she recalled, casting the charms to open up Malfoy's throat, dampen the racing anxiety, and release his body from her magical bind. "It's ok. You can breathe now, try breathing. Here, lean against the wall, it'll help your lungs open up." She gave him a false, encouraging smile, an idea occurring to her. "Hey, I know a charm you might like – _expect patronum!_ ' An otter burst from her wand and rolled about in front of him, the happiness slowly invading their personal space.

Hermione sat beside Malfoy, careful not to touch him while his shaking subsided. He stared at her patronus, although from the look on his face Hermione was pretty sure his mood had gone from terrified to totally blank. She had never tried her Harry-is-freaking-out routine with alcohol before – it was possible her spell work was heavy-handed, or it was affecting Malfoy more because he was piss-drunk. Perhaps this was for the best, though – he had attacked her, and he'd likely be much angrier when he came back to his senses. It was time to end this ill-advised drinking session, she decided.

"Come on, then," Hermione said, standing up. She turned to look down the corridor to check no one else was there, and winced when the burn down her scalp and shoulder blade hurt as she moved her head. Malfoy was so still he seemed catatonic, and Hermione cautiously and slowly reached out to tug at his wrist. "Come on," she repeated, and Malfoy finally got to his feet.

He was barely awake and she still had his wand, so Hermione felt reasonably safe leading the way to the Slytherin dungeon. The castle was freezing and empty, and Hermione felt more and more apprehensive as the cold sobered her up. She felt too awkward to turn to look at him until they reached the wall barring the entrance to the Slytherin common room, but when she finally did there was no trace of discomfort or anger on Malfoy's face. _'I don't think I've ever seen anyone so miserable,'_ Hermione thought. He looked like a dead man who had been unwillingly necromanced back to life.

Hermione pulled out both their wands and returned his. "Here," she said, holding onto her wand in case he became hostile. "Go to bed."

Malfoy didn't say anything or even look at her, and she used the prefect override to open the entrance to the common room. She backed away towards the staircase and watched him eventually walk inside, the bricks sealing up after him.

Hermione headed back to Gryffindor tower and went to bed herself, but the persistent thought of _'what the fuck'_ rolled around in her head for a long time before she fell asleep.


	4. Asset

Hermione woke with a painful twinge down her scalp and back, and the events of the previous night came flooding back immediately, along with a deep sense of dread. Much as she thought it was improbable when Harry first brought it up, his theory that Malfoy was a Death Eater was much more likely in light of her recent encounters with the suspect in question. _'I have to tell Harry,'_ Hermione thought, though she was dreading it, and not just because she hated to be proven wrong. Harry was growing more and more obsessed with Malfoy, and even if he was a Death Eater, Harry needed to focus on his work with Dumbledore to defeat Voldemort.

Besides, Hermione thought, carefully getting dressed to avoid tugging at her new cursed burn, the situation wasn't as straight-forward as it may have appeared at the start of September. She had come across Malfoy more over the past few weeks than the past five years, and all her old interactions with him had been short exchanges of insults and slurs. Now he was actually talking to her. Most important, though, were the constantly red eyes, the gaunt and sick appearance, and the paralysing panic attack she had witnessed.

Either Malfoy was having doubts about Voldemort's aims or methods, or he was in way over his head. From a pragmatic standpoint, it didn't matter which – if Malfoy was a Death Eater, he was an incredibly weak link in Voldemort's organisation. He was an asset with untold potential. Prophecy or not, destroying Voldemort was an almost impossible task. An opportunity to gain intelligence or maybe even turn a man in Voldemort's inner circle was the kind of miracle they needed to even have a chance of pulling this off.

On reflection, maybe telling Harry wasn't the right move – Hermione didn't trust him to trust her opinion on this, and it was too good an opportunity to blow in a fit of Harry's heroics. Professor Dumbledore seemed to be the most trustworthy and knowledgeable person to discuss potential turned Death Eaters with, so she'd have to wait until she was back at school.

The Hogwarts Express was leaving at 9am, and Harry and the others were heading to the Weasley household early in the morning as well, so after packing the last of her things for the holiday week Hermione headed downstairs to say goodbye. Her anger at Ron seemed a bit childish after the events of the past 12 hours, but as she walked into the common room she was greeted to the sight of Ron and Lavender trying to reach their tongues into each other's throats. Talking to Ron could happen _after_ the holidays, Hermione decided, or at least when he stopped being so revolting and mean.

Harry saw her and immediately headed over, no doubt grateful to be rescued from the Ron and Lavender show. "Hi Hermione, I didn't see you…what happened to your head?"

"Oh, it's nothing, the hair straightening charm got away from me," Hermione lied, glad she had an easy excuse thanks to her efforts to dress up for Slughorn's party.

"How did you hide that last night?" Harry said, frowning.

"I had my hair up, remember?" Hermione hadn't counted on Harry's complete lack of interest in her appearance, but his lack of memory would help cement the lie as the truth. "You must have been popular at Slughorn's, I only saw you once."

"Yeah, McLaggen kept annoying me looking for you," Harry said, and Hermione rolled her eyes.

"Ugh. Yeah, I went home early…don't tell Ron that," she added, narrowing her eyes at him. "Do you know when Professor Dumbledore will be back at Hogwarts?"

"No. I don't even know what he's doing," Harry said quietly, and Hermione grimaced.

"Well, you know in a general sense, right?" she replied, trying to be encouraging. "And he's telling you a lot in your lessons…I'm sure he'll let you know when he gets back."

She gave him a hug. "I've got to get going, or I'll miss the train. Have a good Christmas, Harry."

"Yeah, happy Christmas Hermione," he replied. She ducked out the portrait hole to get to the train, and escaped into the blissfully ignorant and comfortably electrified muggle world.

* * *

It seems like every fanfic I write is about enemies trying to turn each other haha. Thank you for reading, if you like the story so far or have any thoughts please leave a review!


	5. Request

Hermione was lying to her parents more than ever now about the wizarding world and the dangerous political path it was spiralling towards. There were plenty of good reasons not to tell them the truth – they would undoubtedly try to stop her from returning, and in the process draw attention to themselves. Then they would be a target for all sorts of terrible things: Death Eaters who would torture them for information or take them hostage, or just attack them to send a message to muggleborns. But a small part of her felt very guilty for misleading them when they were already so blind to the wizarding world. It wasn't right that the best way to protect them was to keep them in the dark, but there wasn't any other choice.

They bought her lie about a hair straightening incident gone awry almost as well as Harry did, and for Christmas her parents paid for a hair braiding appointment in addition to a pile of books, saying now she could avoid the temptation to straighten it and hurt herself again. Her new hairstyle was also useful for covering up the scar Malfoy had left across her scalp. Hermione didn't dare try any muggle treatments for it after seeing what happened to Mr Weasley's snake bite last holidays, and she couldn't try any magical remedies in a muggle residence. By the time she got back to Hogwarts it would probably have half-healed by itself and be too late to try anything to lessen the scarring, which was showing up as a bright white line down her scalp and back. _'At least it's cooler than Ron's tentacle scars,'_ she thought, though it couldn't hold a candle to Harry's Voldemort-destroying lightning scar.

Amongst the variety of muggle technology and holiday comforts, Hermione was able to forget about Voldemort and Malfoy and Ron and everything magical. She had almost managed to completely forget that the problems of the magical world would not leave her alone. But, curled up on the couch with tea and a novel while some cheesy holiday movie played on the TV, it intruded into her family home.

"Oh! Oh, Hermione, there's an owl here for you," her mum called out from the kitchen, and a wave of fear made it hard to breathe. This time last year an owl had turned up to say Mr Weasley had been almost fatally attacked defending against Voldemort – it probably wasn't good news.

She tried to look unconcerned as she followed her mother's voice into the kitchen. An owl as black as night perched calmly on the sink taps, the letter it carried getting covered in soap bubbles from her mother's dish washing. "Thanks, mum," Hermione said, untying the letter. "Do we have any milk or something? I don't know how far it will have flown."

"Of course. Should I close the window? Should it stay the night?" Hermione felt bad as she saw how worried her mother was, out of her element and probably thinking that her daughter was going to leave for some emergency like she did last year.

"Yes, let's close the window. I'll see what this says first." She found some fruitcake and milk and the sooty owl had a miniature Christmas feast while Hermione opened the letter, not recognising the handwriting – another bad omen.

 _Granger,_

 _I don't know how to start this letter. It will probably be surprising and awkward regardless of what I say so I'll just get to the point. Thank you for helping me the other night. You appear to be well-practiced at stopping temporary bouts of insanity, but I won't ask questions if you would be kind enough to do the same._

 _I'm writing to ask you a favour. I'm not familiar with the spells you used, and I'm sure you can appreciate I'm very interested in learning them. If you would write back with the relevant charms, I would be grateful. It would be best for both of us if you kept words vague and did not mention names._

 _Your least favourite drinking buddy_

"It's not bad news, is it?" her mother asked nervously, and Hermione suddenly remembered she was in the room too.

"No, it's – it's fine, it's just a friend," she replied, immediately reflecting that that was one of the bigger lies she had ever told her parents. No, not bad news – a Christmas miracle, one free request of a Death Eater. Not that he had put it into his letter, but Malfoy was obviously desperate if he had come to her, polite and begging for her help. Some things she couldn't ask for; he wouldn't be ready to give her important information at this point. Some sort of favour she could put in place now and reliably call in later would be ideal. Ever the eager student, she was a bit excited to have an interesting project to work on.

More difficult would be her immediate reply. Hermione picked up her tea and the letter, and held her other arm out to the dark owl. "I have to look something up and reply to this, so I'll be in my room," she said. Her mother still looked uneasy, so she elaborated. "My Ancient Runes friend is doing some translation work over the break and had some questions they wanted to run by me."

Her mother's face relaxed, but she looked a little suspicious. "Why aren't you doing the translation work if they're coming to you for questions?" she asked.

"I'm doing extra credit in Potions, not Ancient Runes. And we always peer review difficult parts in Ancient Runes, it's not a big deal," Hermione made up, and her mother finally seemed satisfied, nodding, and turning back to her washing up.

The owl looked at her like it knew she was lying, and Hermione gave it a comfy pillow bed in the corner of her bedroom where it couldn't continue to give her scolding looks like it had learned them from Harry. The first hour's research confirmed what she already suspected: it was possible to make a binding promise with someone, on pain of death.

Hermione wasn't sure whether Malfoy would agree to it – he might not think her help was worth such a costly promise. On the other hand, based on how he looked when she left him at the Slytherin common room, he appeared to be a dead man walking anyway. There was no guarantee he would stay alive long enough for her to extract any favours from him – but this was probably the best option available.

Malfoy wasn't just asking for her spellwork help though – he wanted her silence, and possibly wanted someone who knew about this that didn't judge him. The wizarding world was still in the dark ages regarding health problems, particularly mental health. Ironically, some muggle sympathy and understanding might be very worthwhile to her troubled, bigoted bully.

Several hours and cups of tea replaced with gin and tonic later, Hermione looked at her draft response.

 _To my unfortunate drinking buddy,_

 _I admit it was quite surprising to hear from you. Don't worry about the other night, I'm glad I could help._

 _I actually have more information about your situation that I think you would be interested in. And I can tell you all of the useful charms I know. In return, I have a favour to ask of my own. I think it would be best to discuss this after the break._

 _By the way, though your curses are interesting, they are also difficult to heal, and my friends are getting suspicious I am wandering around the school picking fights. It would be good if you could use something less permanent, if you want to hex me in future._

 _Your least favourite study buddy_

"It'll do," Hermione said aloud, and turned the light off to fall into bed. The owl flapping around her room woke her up early in the morning, and she was able to send her reply and try to put the whole thing out of her mind and enjoy Christmas with her parents.


	6. Juniper Promise

On the train platform, where the muggleborn chain of the Trace was looser than in her parents' home, Hermione immediately charmed a small box with a lock and a back up explosive charm. To her surprise the jet-black owls had returned soon after Christmas, bringing bribes of expensive looking gin and rather stark information on the unsavoury types ringing in a happy new year at the Malfoy residence. At first it seemed like a classic commercial negotiation tactic, but the letters were too frequent, miserable and full of important information to be a sleazy sales pitch.

Malfoy's obvious melancholy and desperation should have made her feel more confident about their upcoming rendezvous, but Hermione still didn't know how she was going to convince him to make an Unbreakable Vow. What did he value that she could try to protect with consideration from her side? His sense of self-preservation was pretty much extinguished, and they shared no values about what was right and wrong. All she knew was he wanted control over panic attacks, and Hermione doubted that would be enough.

Constant brainstorming had not yielded any further compelling reasons though, so Hermione decided to throw caution to the winds. _11pm, where you caught us last year,_ she penned while adding all sorts of unpleasant charms to her note that would hopefully protect the message from unwanted readers, and she sent one of Malfoy's beautiful black owls to Hogwarts to leave him the letter there.

* * *

The Room of Requirement did not disappoint, which was a huge relief to Hermione – she was not sure how specific one could be with what they asked. She stepped through a very inconspicuous doorway into a cool pine forest that oozed a sense of peace and quiet. She sat under a large tree on the edge of the clearing in the centre of the room, dropped her bag and the last of her old money gin beside her, and leant against the trunk.

Embarrassingly, it was such a relaxing environment that she almost fell asleep waiting for Malfoy, who was late. When she came to, he was standing several feet away from her, wand pointed at her. Despite the specifically designed nature of the Room, he looked paralysed with fear, nervous sweat trickling down his face.

She frowned. "Malfoy, I'm not trying to trick you."

"Why did you choose this place?" he asked, looking around.

"Because I thought it would be quiet and calm, but it is rather hard to head to a temperate forest unnoticed during curfew," she explained. He shook his head, sneering and looking confused.

Hermione sighed, irritated and unsure how to proceed. Being too accommodating would surely press more alarm bells for him, and weaken her bargaining position. Maybe stating the problem plainly would help.

"Malfoy, you wrote to me. And you wrote to me because I helped you. And you came here tonight." _And I made you a perfect forest to relax in and escape from the world, and you come in here pointing your wand at me,_ she thought but didn't say. She threw her hands up, shrugging. "What do you want to do?"

He stared at her, and Hermione could almost feel him building several brick walls between them before he lowered his wand and angrily stomped over to her, sitting down beside her and grabbing the gin.

 _Terrible manners_ , Hermione thought, and then immediately tried to forget – now was not the time to think of Narcissa and what she would think about anything going on here. "I brought lemon and tonic, too," Hermione said instead, opening her bag to find glasses and mixers.

They sat in silence putting their drinks together until Hermione clinked her glass against his and they both drained their cocktails.

"Ok," Hermione said. "I can help you."

"I know," Malfoy said dully. "That's why I'm here."

"And you can help me."

"I can't do anything," he said, gripping his glass tightly.

"Well, you managed to send me this very nice gin," she said quickly to distract him, pouring them another round.

"You didn't meet to trade alcohol," Malfoy said.

"I know what is going wrong, in your body and mind, to cause you this grief," Hermione said, cutting to the chase. "I can help you control it with far more than the spells I used before Christmas."

"I can't-" Malfoy said, the rest of his sentence choking in his throat. Hermione looked on, worried as he put his head in his hands, shakes wracking through his whole body. "I can't give you anything," he eventually managed to get out.

"Malfoy, I'm going to cast something calming, ok?" Hermione said, half-asking him to avoid yet another duelling match. He made some sort of noise in his throat which she decided to take as assent, and she placed a strong atmospheric calming spell around both of `them. She waited until he stopped shaking and then chose her words carefully.

"I'm not asking for more in exchange for helping you. What I can do to help you will also help me," Hermione said. He looked up at her, confused and defeated.

"If you could trust me to help you, your- your mind will relax," Hermione said, gesturing to her head as she tried to explain anxiety in less muggle medical terms. "Spells, and charms – these will be much more effective if you could trust me. But right now you can't." Malfoy nodded.

"How could I trust you?" he asked rhetorically, voice barely above a whisper as he played along with her lecture.

"Right. Even if you wanted to, you can't." She paused to gather her thoughts, a blush crawling across her face at a most inopportune time as she put her case to him for her bargain. "I want to be able to trust you, too. But I can't."

He looked at her, still confused. "I want an ally if I'm ever captured by Death Eaters," Hermione said plainly. "If we both promise, to – as much as we can – protect the other, I think we would both be better off."

Malfoy looked at her for a long time, eyes narrowed. "You want to make the Vow," he said eventually.

"I am not asking for more than you can give," she said. "In return, I can help protect your sanity and your life."

He leant back on the palms of his hands, looking up at the false stars in the ceiling through the pines. "You would protect me against one of your own?" he asked.

"Yes," Hermione replied. "But to be honest, I think there is a greater chance of you being harmed by your own side, if your condition becomes known or causes an operational error."

Malfoy exhaled. "Yeah," he admitted flatly. He moved his head to look at her. "So I guess your promise is only good if you can keep me alive."

"Precisely," Hermione replied.

"Do you want information?"

"Only as much as would fulfil your side of the promise."

He continued to stare. "Do you want anything else?"

"Well, I think tying two fates together is enough to be getting on with," Hermione joked, and Malfoy laughed bitterly.

"Right. You've ruined many a good thing, Granger," he said. "You have the curious habit of taking everything I have and turning it to ashes." His comment was rude and mean, but Malfoy didn't seem to be trying to be hurtful. Before she could ask what he meant, he looked past her, towards her bag.

"I assume you have a proposal drafted," he said.

"Yes," Hermione replied, not wanting to waste time if Malfoy was on board. She pulled out her notes and handed them to Malfoy.

 _I will protect you, with the least amount of interference in your personal mission possible, to the best of my ability._

He stared at the short script for a long time, opening his mouth and then closing it again. Hermione could almost guarantee Malfoy wanted to ask more about "personal mission", but daren't give away any information himself. She decided to be kind and explain it further.

"The qualifiers will prevent someone, for example, locking the other safely in a mental or physical prison to fulfil their end of the promise," she said.

"Vow makers acting in bad faith risk death," he murmured, tracing his finger over her writing.

"I would be acting entirely in good faith keeping you away from a crowd of sadistic racists," Hermione replied. "It is my hope that this won't be necessary," she went on, staring intently at the parchment to avoid looking at him and blushing again. "This is just a tool that we can rely on to build trust. But at the least, you won't worry when I point my wand at you to help calm you down, and I might have a hail mary if I'm captured."

He put the parchment down and she looked up at him.

"Ok," he said simply. "I assume you know a way to cast a Vow without a third person."

"Yes," she said, heart racing with excitement and surprise that he had agreed. "We both cast with our left hands."

The fake, magic breeze picked up as they clasped each others' wrists, wands pointed at each others promising hand. He could probably tell her pulse was racing, Hermione thought, embarrassed, but his veins under her clenched fingers jumped erratically too, and she felt a little more confident. He felt cold and damp to the touch, stress personified.

Hermione looked up to check he was ready, feeling like she was about to jump off a cliff. At this close proximity she could see the flecks of white in Malfoy's irises and every burst blood vessel in his eyes.

Her question died in her throat. He nodded. The light escaped from their wands and wrapped an infinity knot around them both. She took a shallow breath and they tied their lives together.


	7. Honeymoon

_tw: violence_

* * *

Harry's information from Dumbledore the following morning brought the weight of her promise down upon her. A Dark magic secret that Dumbledore himself could not extract about Voldemort…and it was far too early to ask her new soulmate about it.

Hermione remembered she had actually wanted to talk with Dumbledore about turning Malfoy before the Christmas break. She doubted the headmaster would have suggested signing a blood contract, shooting an overpowered Calming Charm directly into each other's temples, and then dozing in and out of reality like a couple of common stoners, but Hermione was still certain her idea would work. Maybe it was better not to ask an 150 year old wizard about the subtleties of converting an anxious teenage boy anyway.

She was brought back to reality by Harry's offensive consideration of Ron's dumbass hot take on how to get a secret that the most powerful wizard of all time could not find, and stalked off to the library to start the research that she knew nobody else would fucking bother to do. It's only the end of the world, why would anyone else want to go to the library and try to learn how to avoid it?

Harry's shitty stunt and terrible approach to Slughorn in Potions class later that day pushed her over the edge, and by midnight Hermione was drinking heavily and burning curses into the fake grass of her and Malfoy's new hideout. Her cowardly promise-maker approached warily, and she charmed the notes she had brought with her to form a paper bird that sailed over to him.

"There, that's the theory for your spellwork," she said, drawing an elaborate potions pattern into the greenery and setting it on fire. "Do it yourself. I'll keep watch."

Malfoy stared at her, looking annoyed and unimpressed. "What are _you_ mad about," he said, more accusatory than questioning.

"Doesn't fucking matter," she said shortly. His eyes rolled dramatically up into his skull.

"Is it something stupid," Malfoy said, like he was reluctantly going to listen to her problems. Hermione laughed and spat at the dying fire pattern in the grass.

"Fuck you. Let's say, it's not any more stupid than getting upset because it's harder to kill people than talk racist shit about them."

"You know," Malfoy said, falsely bright with eyes wide in feigned surprise, "I just can't figure out why Weasel didn't want to fuck you instead of that Lavender girl? Becau-"

Drunk and enraged, Hermione cut him off with a winding hex. Malfoy fell to his knees with the breath knocked out of him, and she threw aside her wand and glass to run over to him, pulling him up by his hair and slapping him across the face.

That was where her luck ran out, and he grabbed her offending hand, twisting her arm behind her.

"No-" she shrieked, but not unreasonably Malfoy ignored her, pushing her to the ground with his knee pressed into her spine. Hermione reached her other hand around to scratch at him but he held her elbow in a lock above her head.

She could hear him laugh above her, and then his breath tickled her ear as he leant down to rasp what words he could while getting his breath back.

"You're fucking vile," Malfoy said quietly, his words still lilting with laughter. Hermione was surprised that his comment hurt, but then anger clouded everything else from her mind.

She twisted through the spinal pain to roll onto her back underneath him, getting her left hand free in the process and dragging her nails down his face. Skin and blood caught under her fingers, and Malfoy immediately let go of her right hand to strike her across the face in response.

Hermione spat to the side, but couldn't tell if he'd caused her mouth to bleed. She felt Malfoy's hand catch her jaw at its tilted angle, pressing her face to the side. Her mind blanked with unknown fear until she felt his teeth sink into the base of her exposed throat.

Hermione screamed and pushed against him, managing to shove him off. She tried to get up and get to her wand, but Malfoy beat her to the draw, and he threw her against the trunk of the nearest tree with a hex.

 _There's definitely blood now,_ she thought, her brain unhelpfully occupied with the taste of metal pooling in her mouth as her adversary walked towards her. Hermione tried to push herself up but Malfoy hit her with another spell and a sting whipped across her face, dropping her to the ground again.

 _If this ends in a drunken homicide, it was all for nothing,_ Hermione realised - but the terrifying thought of such a critical failure quickly died. Malfoy ducked down to her stinging and bruised face, pulled her towards him by her braids and kissed her.

She shrieked in response but the sound died in his mouth. Blood spilled down her chin, and as Malfoy drew away he wiped at it with his thumb.

Hermione didn't move, frozen in stunned silence. Malfoy threw back his head and laughed, like he did a million years or two weeks ago by the wine crates at Slughorn's party.

"Amazing," he said, spitting someone's blood out of his mouth - who knew whose blood it was at this point. "I get why you do it now. I feel totally alive."

He pointed his wand between her eyes and the stinging hex healed within seconds. "I'm gonna leave that mark though," Malfoy said, pointing at the right side of her face, and Hermione reached up automatically to touch it. "Give you something to show off in the lions den. I'm sure war wounds play well with your lot."

He picked up her magical paper bird filled with strong relaxant and sleeping theory, tucked it inside his blazer pocket, and strolled out of the Room like he hadn't a care in the world. Hermione didn't move for several minutes before following him out.

She brushed Ginny and Harry's questions off – Harry even looked like he believed that she hit herself on the restricted section ladder trying to find information about horcruxes, which was particularly stupid. The jet black owls returned in a few nights with expensive gifts and pleading requests to return.


	8. Family

_I'm particularly interested in readers' opinions of the story at this point – please think about leaving a review with your thoughts and any criticism! Thank you for reading._

 _tw violence._

* * *

They quickly fell into what Hermione was sure would be considered a very unhealthy routine of potent calming spells, drinking and fighting in the Room of Requirement. Malfoy couldn't seem to get enough of their adventures in forgetting, and Hermione made a mental note that he may have a penchant for addictions. It was a bit difficult to justify to herself that playing around with a possible Death Eater was a worthwhile activity, so Hermione decided to start incorporating specifically Muggle time wasters in between things like experimental Euphoria Potion and whiskey mixes.

After one evening of wine and Chinese burns (which Malfoy found most entertaining, though Hermione noted he only wanted her to touch his right arm and not his left), Malfoy finally broached the more serious side of their arrangement.

"I hear you're spending some time in the Restricted Section lately," he said casually, looking at his red and stinging forearm.

Hermione pulled a face. "Pansy talks about me?" she replied, taking a guess at who might find her library habits of any interest.

"Only horrible things," Malfoy replied, looking over to her. "What are you researching?"

"Umm," Hermione said intelligently, trying to decide how to not reveal anything about horcruxes while still getting something useful out of Malfoy. "Well, I've been very unsuccessful so far, so I'm not really sure yet."

Malfoy carefully studied his hand, clenching and unclenching it. "Don't wanna talk about it?" he said, trying and failing to sound casual.

"Mm…do you wanna talk about it?" Hermione asked back. She stood up and walked over to him, crouching down beside him. "I can think of one thing I could tell you."

Malfoy looked extremely curious. "It's a secret you don't know about, I'd wager," she said quietly. "Or any Death Eater."

He froze up and Hermione rolled her eyes. "Look, I know it bothers you but that's not much of a secret. You don't need to hide your Mark from me, at least."

He looked quite angry. "You don't know what it's like," Malfoy hissed. Hermione decided to be patient.

"I might one day soon. You know in World War Two they tattooed the imprisoned Jews..helped to make the death machine more efficient."

Malfoy glared at her. "They didn't last time," he said.

"Oh, well, maybe not then," Hermione said plainly, getting up and walking away to try and control her anger at his lack of empathy.

"You know, you really don't know everything," Malfoy said, also looking very angry. "Despite what you may think."

"Yeah, I definitely don't know everything," Hermione replied. "Like I don't know how you think it's ok to hang out with me when you want to kill all the Muggleborns."

"I don't, you fucking bint," he spat. He put his head in his hands. "I have to help my father."

There was a short silence as Hermione considered what he said. "Right," she eventually replied softly.

"What," he said testily, looking up and challenging her to voice her disagreement. "Not a good enough reason for you?"

Hermione, tilted her head back and blinked, tears prickling at the edge of her eyes. "It's a wonderful reason," she said, looking up at the false sky. "And your mother, in that big house, with those evil people-"

"Don't fucking judge her," Malfoy said, cutting her off, standing up to point his wand at Hermione's neck.

She tilted her head down to look at him, tears spilling over with the action. "I can't help it. Your whole family built their bed on hatred, Malfoy. Your beautiful house, all the gold in your family's Gringotts account. And now it's a weight around your neck." The tears were streaming properly now, but she was too upset to be embarrassed. "And you and your mother and father want me to die for it."

He walked over to her, wand pointed directly between her eyes. "I'm not my father," he said quietly, hand shaking. Hermione had never seen anyone look so angry yet distraught. "You got that?"

She tried to reply normally, but her voice gave out and her throat choked up. "Prove it," she whispered instead.

He grabbed her right wrist and held it up in front of her. "I already did," Malfoy said pointedly. Then he dropped it and wiped her eyes.

"He has nothing left except me. Same for my mother. And I have nothing left except them. And you, and this…" Malfoy trailed off as wording what was happening aside from their Vow proved too awkward or difficult.

"And you have many, many things left. Much more than my family. So you can dial back the self-pity."

He stood up, picked up his bag, and left. Hermione remained for a while, trying to pull herself together before leaving – she didn't want anyone to see her crying. _Maybe talking about things is too hard to bother with_ , she thought, exhausted.

* * *

Too soon after both of their emotional outbursts however, the allure of information grew too powerful. A few nights later Malfoy showed up in a truly heinous mood, destroying all Hermione's perfectly imagined pine trees with a variety of unpleasant spells.

Feeling a distinct sense of déjà vu, Hermione approached cautiously, but with her wand away in a sign of good faith. "Malfoy?" she asked hesitantly, and he looked at her, sneering so hard his whole face was screwed up.

"Having a good day?" he spat. "You could do a better job keeping your Chosen Wanker on a leash."

Hermione had no idea what he was talking about. "What did Harry do?" she asked, nonplussed. _And why did you use a Rita Skeeter insult, you secret Witch Weekly reader,_ she thought but knew it would be smarter not to voice.

"Don't play dumb," Malfoy said, and an awkward silence followed.

"I'm sorry," Hermione started, "but I really don't kn-"

"He comes over," Malfoy interrupted to explain, obviously annoyed he had to state his problem out loud, "right when Crabbe is being a total fucking dumbass, and starts talking shit, ok? I don't need-"

"Why would that make you mad," Hermione said, but she knew the answer and was not feeling at all sympathetic to Malfoy's very stupid operational decisions. Malfoy looked at her stonily.

"Is it Harry's fault you have your top secret conversations where he can hear them?" Hermione asked, and Malfoy hexed her.

Hermione was well used to this by now though, and continued talking through the burning sensation spreading across her shoulder. "Is it Harry's fault you have no better friends to rely on than fucking _Vincent Crabbe_?"

This remark hurt more, Hermione could tell, because Malfoy's response was to punch her in the mouth. She fell to the ground, and grabbed her wand to Stun him. Malfoy fell over unceremoniously and Hermione took her time fetching her parchment and quill to write him a message, as his assault had caused her tongue to swell up and she was not confident in her ability to speak without sounding ridiculous.

She cast a strong Calming Charm on him before releasing the Stun and handing him her handwritten note.

 _You are very stupid and very lonely._

 _I am already drawing Harry's attention away from you._

She decided it would not be helpful to add that she was drawing Harry's attention away because he would just make matters worse and Harry had far more important things to focus on.

Hermione left Malfoy to come to his senses and wandered off to a far corner of the Room that he hadn't destroyed with slashing and fire hexes, where there was space in between the trees to clearly see the fake sky. She was working on healing her injuries when a very subdued Malfoy arrived and sat down next to her.

"Thanks," he said. Hermione sighed and reached out to place her hand on his.

"How did you come through Slytherin with so few friends you could trust," she remarked sadly. "Isn't that the appeal of the House?"

Malfoy breathed in, looking like he was tossing up the idea of reacting angrily. "I don't think you're trying to be such a bitch? So I'd like you to consider," he qualified at the start of his response, "that you hang out with Weasley."

Anger thudded in Hermione's heart at his equivocation of Crabbe with Ron, but she understood his point of view. "Ok," she said. "I'm not really hanging out with him at the moment, though," Hermione added as an afterthought.

Malfoy laughed. "Yeah, I can tell," he said, but before she could ask him how, he had gotten to his feet and was gazing up at the sky. "Let's climb this tree," he suggested, and they both climbed to near the top where they could see all of the forest he had destroyed.


	9. Gesture

_Thank you to those who left feedback last chapter! I've been thinking hard about it and will incorporate it into my writing from here on out. One point I want to make now and have added to the story summary is that this story is about an abusive relationship, so Draco and Hermione glossing over each other's behaviour is going to be a common theme. I definitely want to work on reflecting this in my writing in a less jarring and more convincing manner._

 _I've also created a music playlist for this fic, there's a link on my author profile if you'd like to listen!_

 _Thank you for reading_ _._

* * *

The urge to vomit never really went away thanks to Lav-Lav and Won-Won, but Hermione thought she would have gotten over it by now. Yet here was February 14th, and she was finding it very hard to force herself to get up and face the day. It felt very childish, but it still hurt. There wasn't really any escaping that she was very much in love with Ron if she continued to feel this ill about his disgustingly public relationship. While everybody else also seemed nauseated when Brown started up, Hermione was fairly sure she was the only person who felt a stabbing pain in her chest.

Ron had a dumb girl who would squeal and hug him and was more popular and agreeable than herself. And Harry had Ginny, always had Ginny, and was just too dumb to see it. Hermione had a mentally ill bigot who hated her for being born and would only hang out with her in secret. It was hard not to dwell on feeling bitter, especially on Saint Valentine's day.

Ron was likely going to get candy and kisses and sweet-nothings for Valentine's Day. Hermione would be lucky to get another punch in the face. And Ron would eventually break up with Lavender and go on with his life, or stay with her living a stupidly pleasant existence until they happily passed away – Hermione had a death bond with a terrorist. That was part of the Pureblood birthright, apparently – living comfortably in whatever world you pleased. Hermione had no choice but to fight while Ron focussed on really important things like keeping his dick wet and sucking at Quidditch. The inequity made her want to scream.

After several deep breaths and a mild Dissociation Charm, she bothered to put on makeup and pull her braids into a more formal bun before heading to breakfast. Indeed, Brown's squeals were audible from the entrance of the Great Hall, and Hermione breathed in very deeply before entering the Hall and sitting as far away from the display as she could. Incidentally, Harry and Ginny seemed to have the same idea, and Ginny rolled her eyes at Hermione in greeting.

"Yeah, welcome to the club," Ginny said, kindly shoving a big mug of coffee towards Hermione as she sat down beside them.

"Thank you," Hermione replied, turning to Harry who had the Prophet. "Hi Harry."

"Hey Hermione. No-one we know," he replied, scanning the front page.

Their typical morning routine of checking the newspaper for bad news was interrupted by two beautiful black owls carrying several presents. Hermione choked on her coffee and Harry had to thump her on the back while Ginny poked at the letter attached to the presents.

"Who is this from?" Ginny asked, before opening one of the boxes and letting out a whistle at the beautiful bouquet of flowers inside.

"I don't know," Hermione eventually coughed out, stalling for time as she opened the note. _He's gone totally mad,_ she thought, terrified she was going to have to take drastic measures and Obliviate him to protect them both from an untimely death. She flipped open the letter and rolled her eyes at the signatory, terror immediately transformed into amusement.

"I didn't know you were talking to Victor," Harry said, reading over her shoulder. He sounded slightly accusatory, Hermione thought, considering that she was not his friend who had run off with someone else and left the other heartbroken.

"This is pretty over the top," Hermione agreed, a smile unwillingly crossing her face. Ginny started pulling flowers out of her bouquet and annoying a vaguely embarrassed Harry by sprinkling petals over his hair.

"Stop it," Harry mumbled. "That's not even yours, Gin, don't wreck Hermione's gift."

"I'm just sharing the Valentine's Day spirit," Ginny replied, blowing a bunch of petals into Harry's face. "Hermione doesn't mind, right?"

"I'm sure Victor will be happy to learn his presents gave Harry an allergic reaction," Hermione said drily as Harry sneezed and his eyes begun to water, and he shoved Ginny to try and get her to stop. "This is a very romantic scene."

"What's in that one?" Ginny asked, pointing to another box, and Hermione flicked it open.

It was a silver bracelet. Tiny gemstone pine trees and birds were linked to it, and had been enchanted to have a hint of life. They circled around their chain link, the light catching the stone edges to make them blink – or maybe the were enchanted to seem more realistic.

"Fuck me, professional Quidditch pays better than I thought," Ginny said, frowning at a tiny ruby bird. "We've gotta go pro Harry." She passed it to him, and he stopped wiping his watery eyes to put his glasses back on to take a closer look.

"Are the pine trees a Bulgaria thing or something?" Harry asked, looking at the bracelet briefly before taking Hermione's hand and putting it on her wrist.

"I think his family's home is in a forest," Hermione lied. "What a ridiculous grand gesture," she stated dismissively, thought she couldn't deny a tiny part of her was excited that Ron would surely hear about this and feel bad.

"Hey, check it out – Bulgarian homebrew!" Ginny exclaimed, holding up another of her prizes from opening Hermione's mail – some dangerous looking bottle of spirits with foreign labelling.

"Oh," Hermione said, taking it from her, impressed with the effort Malfoy had put into this stupid stunt. "I'm suddenly feeling much more on board with this."

Ginny pointed at both Hermione and Harry. "Let's crack it open tonight. I gotta run," she said, putting the bouquet in her bag. "You don't mind if I give this to Luna?"

"Not at all," Hermione said.

"Good, it's always a better day when Luna is handing out something weird," Ginny said cheerfully.

Hermione magically disintegrated the rest of the packaging, but slipped Malfoy's note pretending to be Victor Krum into her Ancient Runes textbook.

* * *

Hermione felt rather smug slipping away from Harry and Ginny that evening, leaving them a mostly-full bottle of apple rakia, and headed to the Room of Requirement. Malfoy was there already, leaned against a fake tree, pulling at the nails on his hands nervously. He looked slightly unhappy to see Hermione arrive empty handed.

"Where did my Bulgarian brandy go?" he asked.

"I used it to play matchmaker," Hermione replied, putting her bag down near him and lying on the fake forest floor, staring up at the false sky. "Did you consider that sending something that flashy wasn't a terribly clever idea?"

Malfoy rolled his eyes and sat down beside her. "Did literally anyone think it was suspicious?" he asked.

"I get the impression Harry wasn't too impressed," Hermione said.

"That's because he knew Weasley would get all cut up about it," Malfoy replied, voice thick with smugness. Hermione groaned and rolled her eyes.

"Are we all actually five years old?" she asked out loud. "Was that the only reason you did it?"

"Well…I mean, I also thought it would be funny," Malfoy said, scratching his neck.

"You're right. Whenever I'll look at this horribly expensive looking thing, I'll think, 'Draco Malfoy is an idiot'," Hermione said, holding her arm up and jangling her bracelet by his face.

"Well, I thought you might like pine forests. Since, you know…" Malfoy trailed off, vaguely gesturing at her imagined Room of Requirement.

"Hm. I guess I do. I think the smell of pine is relaxing," Hermione said, crossing her arms behind her head, closing her eyes and breathing in. "What's your ideal holiday destination?" she asked, unkindly imagining French castles and islands where many oppressed locals waited on his horrid family hand and foot.

"Anywhere that's not this Room," he replied immediately. Hermione opened her eyes, and couldn't help feeling a little hurt. Malfoy wasn't looking at her, staring off into the middle distance instead. _I think he's telling the truth,_ Hermione thought, reflecting on his lack of reaction to her negative response and how quickly he spoke.

"Um, I'm sorry," she said, feeling very awkward. "We could go somewhere else if you like?"

Malfoy looked away, apparently considering her offer. "Ok, let's go," he said, and jumped up quickly, offering his hand to pull her up.

They left the Room, and Hermione suddenly felt very vulnerable – usually when she was sneaking around Hogwarts when she shouldn't, Harry was with her and they had the Invisibility Cloak. Malfoy apparently didn't care at all though, and he immediately strode off, leaving her to follow behind him and worry.

"Aren't you worried someone will see us?" she hissed at him, and Malfoy made a weird _tch_ noise that clearly indicated he couldn't care less.

"You've always seemed better at hiding than me. Do whatever concealing magic you want," he said. Hermione decided to play it off as though she was too cool to consider it. The Cloak was one of the aces they had if everything truly hit the fan and they needed to get Harry away in a hurry – Malfoy might be some sort of friend now but he couldn't know something that important. Still, Hermione thought, he raised a good point – her knowledge of concealing magic was very limited due to the Cloak's reliability. It was an important gap in her knowledge she needed to fix.

Hermione broke out of her train of thought as she realized they were heading up many staircases, and understood where Malfoy was going.

"Uh, is the Astronomy Tower the best place to go on Valentines Day?" Hermione asked pointedly. Malfoy stopped in his tracks.

"Good point," he said, and headed back down the staircase they were on to walk into the nearest classroom, which thankfully turned out to be empty. Hermione followed and Malfoy locked the door behind her. She sighed, quite relieved they hadn't run into anyone on their trip.

"So-" Hermione started, but Malfoy grabbed her, pushing her up against the wall and kissing her.

She didn't even consider fighting back. She was so sick of feeling tired and sad and stressed, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him back. The more she thought about this world and how unfair it was, the more a huge sadness crushed in on her. Hermione leaned into Malfoy and ran her fingers up through his hair.

He moved his hand to the small of her back and started kissing her neck. It was her opportunity to say something and stop this, but Hermione remembered Ron and Harry and Voldemort and started taking off Malfoy's shirt instead.


	10. Toxic

_Completely unrelated, but the part of the books that this chapter focuses on has one of my favourite jokes in the series: Fred says "fairly" that Wood might have assassinated the Slytherin Quidditch team if he could have gotten away with it. Bless that boy's single-minded determination about quidditch and Fred and George's ruthless sense of humour haha._

* * *

Several days of heady happiness and messing about in a variety of locations around the castle followed. Every evening was spent leaving the Room of Requirement behind and exploring the castle, giggling like school children as they avoided security patrols. Angry fighting and curses were completely replaced with sweet kisses and a constant stream of compliments in Hermione's ear, telling her she was beautiful, she was a better witch than twenty death eaters put together.

The war used to be a frequent and foreboding topic. Now when it (rarely) came up, Hermione would confidently state they were definitely going to get out alive, and Draco would convince them both that Voldemort was so much weaker than last time, and the whole campaign would fold without either of them having to fight.

Ginny teased Hermione about how happy she looked, and when Hermione looked in the mirror there was a brightness that had returned to her skin and face. The sadness about Ron and worries about death eaters had all been washed away by waves of sex, groupthink, and childish rule-breaking without consequence.

It was a stolen happiness, and it had to be paid for. It was all shattered when Ginny ran into the library looking for her, crying and distraught with news of Hermione's payment for ignoring the real world.

Hermione felt very far away from reality as she looked down at Ron's pale, unconscious face and heard Harry explaining for what seemed like the thousandth time how he had saved Ron's life. Fred and George and Ginny and Harry all debated who the poisoner could have been, and Hermione remembered every stolen kiss and joke and hex and charm she had exchanged with Draco to forget her emotions and problems.

 _You have to hold all this anger and guilt now,_ she thought as the others discussed Slughorn's possible motive for killing Ron. _You made a Vow. You have to protect an attempted murderer before you protect Ron's life._

"…the poisoner could just as easily have been after Dumbledore," Ginny said.

"Then the poisoner didn't know Slughorn very well," Hermione croaked, her throat uncooperative as she forced herself to redirect her friends from the truth. "Anyone who knew Slughorn would have known there was a good chance he'd keep something that tasty for himself."

Ron stirred and tried to say her name, and Hermione felt her conscience break again and again under all the guilt.

Hagrid suddenly entered the hospital wing, wonderfully setting the discussion back while everyone caught him up with their previous thinking and suggesting the whole series of events was about quidditch. Hermione took the chance to restate the obvious: the culprit was stupid, reckless, and didn't care who he took out on his path to his intended victim.

Ron's parents then arrived, and Hermione left with Hagrid and Harry to give the Weasleys space.

"It's terrible," Hagrid said angrily as they headed towards the castle's main entrance. "All this new security, an' kids are still getting' hurt. Dumbledore's worried sick."

"Hasn't he got any ideas, Hagrid?" Hermione asked, partly for Draco and the Vow, and partly because she hoped Dumbledore might end her stupid promise and suffering for her.

"I 'spect he's got hundreds of ideas," Hagrid replied, "brain like his. But he doesn' know who sent that necklace nor put poison in that wine, or they'd've bin caught, wouldn' they?" He continued talking to his worries about the dangerousness causing Hogwarts to be closed while Hermione thought on what Hagrid said.

She had been under the assumption that Dumbledore didn't know it was Draco until now – not that Dumbledore wasn't a genius, but before now there hadn't been multiple attacks to analyse. The attempt that Ron got in the way of had made it obvious the attacker was not just an opportunist who Imperiused an unsuspecting student in public, but a dedicated, reckless and incompetent assassin who had links to Hogwarts. Draco would surely now be on the shortlist of suspects. _Fucking dumbass,_ Hermione thought. It wasn't like Draco was an unskilled wizard, so he obviously just didn't have the nerve or brains for this sort of thing.

Hagrid brought her back to earth with his typical loose lips – the 'sn' consonant passed his lips and Harry leapt on it.

"What?" said Harry quickly." "Dumbledore's angry with Snape?"

"I never said tha'," Hagrid said, panic written all over his face. "Look at the time-"

"Hagrid, why is Dumbledore angry with Snape?" Harry practically yelled and Hermione was thankful again she had not included Harry in her secretive plans to coerce Draco. Hagrid desperately tried, and failed, to stop Harry's loud questions, but eventually relented and Hermione and Harry listened carefully.

"I - well, I was comin' outta the forest the other evenin' an' I overheard 'em talking – well, arguin'," Hagrid said. "Didn't like ter draw attention to meself, so I sorta skulked an' tried not ter listen, but it was a – well, a heated discussion."

This surprised Hermione – she was sure Dumbledore could get very angry, but having an old fashioned argument complete with shouting seemed out of character.

"Well?" Harry pushed.

"Well – I jus' heard Snape sayin' Dumbledore took too much fer granted an' maybe he – Snape – didn' wan' ter do it anymore," Hagrid said.

"Do what?" Harry asked, and Hagrid said something about workload priorities, before revealing the critical detail: Dumbledore had asked Snape to investigate Slytherins about the failed assassination attempt through Katie.

Hermione looked at Harry and they instantly both knew – and so did Dumbledore apparently, or at least he had significant suspicions, ever since Draco's first slipshod murder attempt. Dumbledore suspected or knew Draco was behind the attacks.

 _So why is he still at Hogwarts?_ Hermione thought, mind racing. Maybe a lack of evidence? But then why wouldn't Dumbledore have Draco followed if he suspected him, and knew he was dangerous and likely to harm others?

 _Oh._ The answer arrived suddenly, and Hermione could feel the shock involuntarily hit her body language, eyes widening and mouth gone slack. _That's what Dumbledore and Snape were arguing about._ Dumbledore had ordered Snape to spy on Draco, and Snape was apparently sick of it. That was why the work argument segued into investigating Slytherins in general.

Filch showed up at that point and Hermione left with Harry, headed up to the Gryffindor girls dorm, and stood in the dark corridor before the dorm entrance, mind still whirring. Hagrid's information was so valuable, but there was still a piece missing – a piece that the person on the other end of the Vow would have to give or risk breaking it.

Steeling herself with arguments on how he had to tell her whose side Snape was really on so she could protect herself, Hermione cast an Invisibility Charm and headed back out, anger and adrenaline pulsing through her veins. Ron had paid a terrible price for this information and Hermione was going to make sure it wasn't for nothing. It was time to start cashing in her part of the Vow and find out from the inner circle what Snape's role was in Draco's poorly executed mission.

Draco was waiting in the hallway, looking sick with nerves – he had obviously heard what had happened. Hermione walked past him into the Room without saying anything, and he followed behind. She looked past him to watch the entrance, trying to keep her anger in check and focus on the task at hand.

"Dumbledore suspects you, and he's angry with Snape. Do you know anything about that?" Hermione said quietly after the door shut and sealed behind him. Draco looked at her like she was mad.

"What? I-is he going to make it or not?" he hissed.

"What do you care," Hermione said, her voice shaking but gaze kept firmly past Draco. "I asked you about Snape."

A silence followed, and Hermione finally shifted her gaze to him, pulling out her wand. "Don't make me ask-"

"Snape…might be giving Dumbledore false targets," Draco finally said tersely, and Hermione swore under her breath, looking away. This was crucial information and she needed to have pushed for it sooner, needed to believe in Harry more because he had been right about this and she had been wrong to trust their teacher.

"Is Snape helping you," Hermione said, though after his admission it wasn't much of a question.

"He wants to," Draco whispered.

"Maybe you should let him?" Hermione suggested, looking back at him, words filled with venom. "You appear to be really fucking shit at this. How many people have to die for your incompetence?" She walked past him and left, hating that the Vow made her shoot a Calming Spell at his back while she walked out, angry that she spent the night lying awake, thinking of how many of her friends would be hurt while Draco fumbled his way through an assassination no wizard could manage.


End file.
